The recent assassination of journalist Paul Klebnikov in Moscow has sent an unmistakable signal about President Vladimir Putin's Russia. Truth and transparency are under assault. The law has been subordinated to brute strength. The slaying of Mr. Klebnikov is the most naked manifestation of how things work in the New Russia, but it is a difference of degree, not in kind. Finding and punishing the people behind this killing not just the triggerman, but the individuals who paid for the murder is a litmus test for Mr. Putin and his government.

Earlier this month, Mr. Klebnikov, the 41-year-old editor of Forbes magazine's Russian edition, was shot as he left his office. He died at the hospital, after telling a friend he did not recognize who shot him. The circumstances of his treatment say a lot about Russia: Two of the ambulances that arrived at the shooting did not have oxygen. When he got to the hospital, the elevator went the wrong direction and then got stuck. By the time a mechanic got it started again, Mr. Klebnikov had died.

Suspicion immediately fell on those listed among Russia's 100 richest people, "the oligarchs," who were the subject of a Forbes story the month before. Naming names is a dangerous proposition when much of that wealth was acquired in questionable circumstances. Mr. Klebnikov had also angered the powers that be by criticizing Mr. Putin in a newspaper interview, accusing him of using the law to go after his political opponents.